Baburi clapped his hands and one of his men carried over a long, thin wooden box that he placed at his feet. ‘You taught me a long time ago to be an archer. You made me a
‘It’s shaped like a little cannon.’
‘Exactly. It’s a musket — a cannon in miniature. See, it has a long metal barrel for firing a ball. This matchlock mechanism, as it’s called, is how it works. You put the gunpowder here, into the pan, then light the end of a thin piece of rope. When the flame reaches the gunpowder, it ignites it and the force fires the ball from the barrel.’
‘How far?’
‘More than two hundred yards but it’s most accurate up to about fifty. Try it.’
As soon as one of the Turks had set up a melon on a pole as a target, Baburi poured a small amount of gunpowder into the pan and loaded the shot. ‘ To help take the weight as you aim, you should rest the barrel on this frame.’ Baburi indicated a tall metal stick about four feet high that forked at the top to make a cradle. Thrusting the end of the stick into the ground, he showed Babur how to rest the barrel of the musket in the centre of the cradle. ‘Look straight down the barrel at your target and, remember, when it fires you’ll feel a kick, so brace yourself. Ready?
Babur took the musket, placing the butt against his shoulder, closed his left eye and focused his right along the shining barrel. When he thought he had the melon in his sights, he nodded. Baburi lit the piece of rope, which began to smoulder.
‘Keep it steady. .’ Baburi was still speaking as, with a sharp crack, the ball shot out and the top of the melon disintegrated in a spray of orange pulp. . ‘Good. But now let me show you what my trained musketeers can do with these. .’ He gestured to another row of targets: fifteen straw dolls lined up on a trestle table some fifty yards away. An equal number of Baburi’s men lined up, primed and loaded their weapons and, one after another, fired with perfect precision, each man knocking over his target, then stepping back smartly to reload and stand to attention. Immediately the fifteenth man had reloaded, they swung round a hundred and eighty degrees, rested their muskets again in the cradles and fired at a row of clay pots set up even further away. Again, each man’s aim was perfect.
‘Of course, in the heat of battle, fingers fumble, targets move, but I’ve seen these guns shatter advancing lines of soldiers.’
Babur put his arm around Baburi’s shoulders as he tried to put into words the vision that had been forming in his mind as he had watched his friend demonstrate the power of these miraculous new weapons. It was as if Canopus had risen above the enshrouding clouds to blaze brightly on him and his dynasty once more.
‘You’re not just my friend. You’re my inspiration. You’ve brought me far more than weapons. . Until now, although I’ve long wished to make one, a full-scale attack on Hindustan was not possible. I had neither the numbers of men nor any special advantage. The rulers there are numerous and strong. Their overlord is the proud, arrogant Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi. To win Hindustan I must defeat his huge armies and his ranks of war elephants. But with these new weapons I now see how I can do it. I may not be destined to have a great empire like Timur’s in the lands of my birth but with your cannon and muskets I can surpass his raid over the Indus to Delhi. We will fulfil the dreams we had all those years ago.’
Chapter 21
Dreams of greatness came easily. Achieving it was harder. It had taken Baburi and his Turkish mercenaries six months to create a corps of troops skilled at firing the cannon and muskets he had brought to Kabul. Meanwhile, as the citizens of Kabul had grown used to the flashes and
Even more satisfying to Babur had been the knowledge that his own armourers were learning to make the new weapons under the expert guidance of Ali-Quli, the grey-bearded Turkish master-gunner who had accompanied Baburi to Kabul. His ability with both cannon and musket was extraordinary — especially as five years ago, two fingers of his right hand had been blown off by an exploding matchlock with a cracked barrel.
Night after night, Babur had sat late with Baburi, questioning minutely his accounts of battles in which cannon and matchlocks had been deployed. In what circumstances were they most effective? In open battle or siege? How could you best protect your gunners and matchlock men against archers or cavalry charges? How did these weapons change the traditional methods of attack? Before he tested them in battle, he must understand everything.
Babur also sent men out into the city to linger in the large, arched caravanserais where the merchants of many lands displayed their wares on raised stone platforms in the middle of the courtyard, trading gossip as well as goods. Babur’s agents listened carefully, asking the occasional discreet question. They heard much boastful talk from the Hindustani merchants about Delhi’s vast palaces of carved rose-pink sandstone and the grandeur of Sultan Ibrahim’s court but not the faintest rumour that he — or any other ruler of Hindustan — had acquired cannon and matchlock muskets.
But now, at last, on a cold, clear January day, Babur was leading an expedition to see for himself the effect of these weapons against an enemy unused to them. That enemy was the new Sultan of Bajaur, a dependency of Kabul, who had taken it into his foolish young head to refuse Babur the customary annual tribute in grain, sheep and oxen.
The Bajauris, living high in the mountains in dense forests of oak, olive and wormwood, noisy with rasping mynah birds, were an idolatrous, infidel people with strange beliefs. When a Bajaur woman died the men placed her corpse on a stretcher and, taking each of the four corners, raised it up. If she had lived a good life, the Bajaurs believed her spirit would cause the men holding the stretcher to shake so violently that her body would be thrown to the ground. Only then would the people don black mourning garb and begin their lament. If, on the other hand, a female corpse induced no such motion, it was considered proof of an evil life and the body was tossed unceremoniously on to a fire to be reduced to nothing.
The ruler of these singular people had provided him with a fine opportunity, Babur thought, as, with Baburi by his side, he rode out of Kabul at the head of a column that included a detachment of newly trained matchlock men and gunners, all hand-picked by Ali-Quli, and four cannon. They circled northwards up through hilly terrain towards Bajaur. In the old days, Babur and his men would have ridden fast and hard on a raid like this, taking their enemy by surprise. But the heavy cannon in their trundling bullock carts slowed their pace, providing more opportunity and time for observers to raise the alarm.
Babur brooded on this as he rode, not noticing the chill wind in his face. He was also reflecting on a passage he had come across in a chronicle shortly before leaving Kabul: ‘Timur prized bold and valiant warriors by whose aid he opened the locks of terror and ripped in pieces men like lions and through them and their battles overturned the heights of mountains. .’ It also told of Timur’s loathing for cowards. Any man, whatever his rank, who failed him in battle had had his head shaved and his body painted red. Then, dressed in women’s clothes, he had been dragged through the camp to be beaten and reviled by his comrades before being executed. Mercy had been unknown to Timur.
Babur understood the need for ruthlessness. Just three nights ago, on a surprise tour of inspection, he had found five men asleep on picket duty and had ordered an example to be made of them. Their left ears had been sliced off and the men paraded before the rest of Babur’s force, bleeding and with the severed ears on a string round their necks. But if he was to succeed, as Timur had done, in forging and holding an empire, he would have to find even greater reserves of toughness within himself, an even greater ability to sacrifice others to his ambition without the appearance of a second thought.
‘Majesty.’ One of Babur’s scouts, well muffled in sheepskin against the cold, rode up to him. ‘The sultan has fled from his capital ten miles ahead of us to a fortress on banks of the Bajaur river in the hill country twenty miles
